20 Successful Experiment to ameliorate 



the remarks you have appended thereto, on the means of 

 increasing the comforts and respectability of the labouring 

 poor, are so much in unison with the principles I have my- 

 self adopted on the same interesting subject, that I cannot 

 refrain from tendering you, for insertion in your next number, 

 some account of an original experiment begun by myself, 

 about six years ago, on a part of my property in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood of this place. Twenty years' experience 

 as a magistrate of this and two adjoining counties have fully 

 confirmed in my mind a suspicion I had from general ob- 

 servation previously formed, that the moral and political de- 

 gradation of the labouring classes in this country, generally, is 

 more the effect of the circumstances in which they have been 

 placed, than of any \ ositive and unavoidable necessity ; and 

 by far less the result of their own indifference or criminality, 

 than of the imperfection and errors of that state of society of 

 which they form an essential, but a most oppressed and 

 unjustly treated portion. Not satisfied with endeavouring to 

 demonstrate this great and important truth, by means of the 

 public press, I determined on making it a matter of actual 

 experiment ; — in opposition to the advice of nearly every 

 person I thought it right previously to consult, and to the evi- 

 dent surprise of all others. Having at the time a colliery in 

 work upon my estate, I selected a piece of land not very fully 

 or profitably stocked as woodland, at a moderate distance 

 therefrom ; — three quarters of a mile from my house, on the 

 opposite bank of the river, and within a mile of one or two 

 other collieries, which I knew my lands to be capable of ad- 

 mitting the formation of, at some period of time. Here, 

 having previously cleared away the underwood and bushes on 

 about one hundred perches of land, I invited several working 

 colliers and others, whom I knew to be industrious and toler- 

 ably sober, to build houses fit for the reception of themselves 

 and families, offering them the land and raw materials for 

 building, (to be had on the property, with other temporary 

 aid,) on terms that, whilst they left them but little to risk, 

 provided a prospect of fair remuneration in time to myself, as 

 owner of the property, should the plan succeed. If the expe- 

 riment failed, the loss I calculated on adding to the amount 

 of other losses incurred in making less valuable experiments ; 

 if it succeeded, it would carry with it its own reward. The 

 greatest difficulty I found, in the first instance, to arise out of 

 that state, bordering on despair, which paralyses the exertions 

 of a great majority of our labouring poor ; — this overcome, 

 every thing else became comparatively easy, especially when I 



